TIL: Life Could Exist on Mars Thanks to Methane

We’re getting closer. Discovering life on Mars, once a glimmer of a fantasy, is now looking more and more promising. According to geobiologist Jeff Marlow, anywhere on Earth we find liquid water and enough energy, we find life. So the best way to find it on Mars might be to consider what early life on Earth looked like. Microbes, one of the earliest forms of life on Earth, have been found in the most extreme environments, consuming methane gas bubbling up from the bottom of our oceans. Mars, too, has methane, and it might also carry liquid water deep below its surface. Could methane and water be the secret to eventually discovering microbial life on Mars? It certainly looks possible, and we’re closer than ever before.

Marlow joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution aboard the Alvin submersible to study methane seeps and microbes, a project funded by the National Science Foundation.

TIL: Life Could Exist on Mars Thanks to Methane

We’re getting closer. Discovering life on Mars, once a glimmer of a fantasy, is now looking more and more promising. According to geobiologist Jeff Marlow, anywhere on Earth we find liquid water and enough energy, we find life. So the best way to find it on Mars might be to consider what early life on Earth looked like. Microbes, one of the earliest forms of life on Earth, have been found in the most extreme environments, consuming methane gas bubbling up from the bottom of our oceans. Mars, too, has methane, and it might also carry liquid water deep below its surface. Could methane and water be the secret to eventually discovering microbial life on Mars? It certainly looks possible, and we’re closer than ever before.

Marlow joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution aboard the Alvin submersible to study methane seeps and microbes, a project funded by the National Science Foundation.